Fort Worth, Stockyards & Horse Demos!
Saturday morning we headed out to the Fort Worth Stockyards for the Horse Expo!!
Fort Worth is just so stinkin’ cool! It brings out the inner cowgirl in me that is always trying to burst out. It was just fun being there amidst the cowboys, the cattle drive and the overall ambience of the place.
Most of the morning was spent watching a natural horsemanship clinic based on Clinton Anderson’s methods in www.downunderhorsemanship.com. I learned so much at this clinic on how to help horses through some of the bad habits (like biting the sidewalkers) that they acquire through the years. I hope over the winter break I can work with one or two of our horses on this. The main premise is working with your horse on backing up with just hand motions. It is the ultimate sign of respect when a horse will freely back up. Its much harder for them to move this way and quite frankly they just do not want to do it.
I learned how “getting a horse’s feet moving” can take their mind off their focus on something fearful. Sometimes a horse will develop a fear of the mounting block and will just lock up and no matter what you do you can’t get them to stand beside that mounting block. Using a wonderful horse to demonstrate, the clinician showed how to “pass” a horse back and forth almost lunging them by the mounting block over and over and then allowing them to “rest” next to the mounting block with lots of praise.
In regards to our horse’s mind, we need to make “the difficult thing easy and the easy thing difficult.”
Once our horse figures out that compared to cantering or trotting back and forth over and over again, the mounting block is a pretty great thing.
We also got to watch some drill patterns done by some members of a local Therapeutic Riding Center and it was so amazing watching them work in sync with each other and the teamwork they demonstrated was fantastic.
Another treat was the Ft. Hood Mounted Calvary and in light of recent events, watching what these men do on horseback is a sight to see. Check out their history on the website www.first-team.us/journals/sep_bnco/hcdndx01.html
This was such a great way to end an information filled weekend!
With new cowboy boots on my feet – I’m headin’ home!
Wow Tammy; this site has really taken shape, and I love to see your writing! I had looked at it before, but it is clearly more developed now, and I did not realize how many extended posts you have made. I will definitely be reading; and I hope that you also archive these or store them for the future, so your kids and my kids can read them!